Journey Through 1&2 ThessaloniansSample

Intro

Nicole introduces this lesson about work and its relationship to Genesis 1&2.

Work: In the Text

Paul teaches the Thessalonians that work is good. It helps us be independent and generous. And we will be ready when Christ returns.

Work as a Vocation

Work is something God intended for us from the beginning. Pain, death and exile are the result of Adam’s sin, but not work. The ground is “cursed” after the Fall (Gen 3:17), but Adam and Eve were given a vocation from the very beginning—to work and care for the Garden. Work was not a curse, but an essential part of what it means to be human. Paul picks up this theme of the importance of work in his letters to the Thessalonians and offers a pointed message to this community.

Work & Reputation

The Already & Not Yet

The Gospels locate the Church in “the overlap between the ages.” Paul’s message of salvation is one of something already accomplished in our Messiah crucified, “once for all” (Rom 6:10), that also anticipates a time when the “completeness comes” (1 Cor 13:10) when the Messiah returns as King.

Since Genesis, we’ve seen people living between God’s promises and their completion, and with Paul we take another step closer to fulfillment. Something new and decisive has happened in Jesus, which has stirred hope with a renewed promise.

Thus, we live in an age of “already” and also “not yet”—some things are completed, while other things are assured but not yet fulfilled. Paul deals with some of these “already/not yet” issues with the Thessalonians. Consider this passage:

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 (NIV)